


Testing

by cinomarsh



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Betrayal, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Moral Ambiguity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6828349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinomarsh/pseuds/cinomarsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cave's history with Caroline has always revolved around one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Testing

He had always loved to test her.

Ever since Cave Johnson met Caroline, he'd been testing her. Not overly complicated tests, although she'd always been in the mood for a good puzzle, but smaller, more subtle trials, spanning throughout their whole lives together. And the solution to these tests was always the same.

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson!"

Those four words were all Cave ever needed to hear. They echoed themselves through every year in his life since that first meeting with her.

Caroline, nervous and earnest, sitting in the chair across the desk from him, applying for the personal assistant position. She was obviously enthralled by even being inside of Aperture Science Innovations, overwhelmed in the presence of its rising CEO. Her eyes had been wide and darting and her speech had been a little rushed, but most importantly her passion for scientific development, forward thinking, progress, and everything Aperture stood for, was evident. After she signed a paper or two, Cave had given her a grin and asked, "are you ready to do some science?"

She'd smiled at him for the very first time.

"Yes sir, Mr Johnson!"

He laughed. She'd passed the test with flying colours.

After that, she was at his side every day, always ready when he needed her, always eager to help. He asked her to fetch coffee and files, to book interviews and conferences, and she rose to every challenge. Her eyes lit up whenever he called her by name. She never declined a request. When he'd asked her if she'd like to be on some of the prerecorded messages for a new testing project he was working on, she'd giggled before telling him,

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson!"

Her presence in his world became essential. He needed her for everything, and she went above and beyond for him. Half of the time he didn't even need to ask her to do something. She knew.

So he made the tests a little harder. She'd jumped at the chance to work late with him after everyone had gone home. She had no problem handling prototype trials and even helped design a few. She calmly escorted recently fired employees out of the building at his request. She knew the codes to all his hidden safes by heart. Nothing ever went missing. He trusted her completely.

So when the first human test subject casualty had occurred in the program she had fully endorsed, he immediately asked her not to say anything to anyone about it. She'd taken a moment, her brown eyes searching his, before giving him a curt, understanding nod.

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson."

He'd known she could do it.

The tests started getting riskier.

First, he told her about the new testing initiative, using the homeless and, if need be, unwilling employees. He'd asked her to stand with him, to assist him at his side. She'd been shocked at first, but he knew she'd understand. It was for science, and the future of their company. After the hesitation in her features had faded, she straightened her back and delivered the correct answer with her usual strength and certainty,

Then it was the tests themselves, hundreds upon hundreds of deadly tests chambers that needed designing and supervising. Caroline would watch the test and carefully take down results, quickly getting used to the special shorthand, patterns, and mindset this required. She managed to resist answering questions or pleas, only going over the speakers to deliver additional instructions or warnings. She was becoming more and more confident behind the microphone. Cave had always thought the task suited her.

The most surprising success on her part, however, was her commitment to secrecy. One accidental death in testing years ago was one thing, but a regular weekly turnout of failed test subjects was quite another. Of course, when the only goal in a test is to survive, failure starts to take on a new meaning. Caroline witnessed this and never said a word against it. She knew what she'd signed up for: Science. And science wasn't sentimental or pretty. Science was one catastrophic failure after the other, in the hopes of reaching the smallest glimmer of success. She knew this, and so every time a test subject's body needed removing or a lie needed telling, Caroline's answer was simple:

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson."

Every necessary evil, ground into moral neutrality, was met with the same assent.

Caroline's communication with Cave Johnson wasn't always like this. She greeted him in the morning, smiling and beginning the day for him. She bid him good evening whenever she left, making the room a little less bright with her departure. Her hands had found their way into his more than once, their lips meeting in celebration, in comfort, in privacy, in contentment. Her gaze held a fondness for him he'd never seen before, could never put into words, and never needed to. But as happy as all of this made him, her persistent dedication to conquering every test in front of her, his or otherwise, was what absolutely astounded him. Her own brand of power and strength was incredible. He adored her for it.

Even as Aperture's funding dropped like a stone, she never gave up on him. The moon rocks were a risky decision to say the least, but when Cave insisted on the multi-million dollar purchase even after Caroline had reminded him of their precarious financial position, she'd replied in the usual fashion.

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson."

The sale had gone through, miraculously, and not long after the purchase, Cave decided to do a little experiment of his own. He drank moon rock gel, a drastic stab in the dark for a company-saving discovery. Not long after that, it started to kill him.

He began to depend on her even more. He asked her for extra reminders, and pain pills, and help standing up. He felt as though he was aging years in days. She never complained. She never once explained to him how she was able to watch him dying and never break her stride, not in front of him, with whom she spent almost every waking moment. With the company crumbling around him and his body falling into disrepair, it was all he could do not to spend every day telling her how terrified he was.

The GLaDOS project was Cave's final desperate grasp to hold on to Aperture. Brain mapping; putting a human brain into a supercomputer that could run the company forever. He wanted to stay with it, protect it, continue to grow and develop it. But he knew what was happening to him, and he knew that if it couldn't be him, there was absolutely no question as to who his replacement would be.

Caroline was his last hope. She would do an incredible job at Aperture without him, he was sure of it. She knew what he would want, and she would fine-tune everything in that way of hers. Aperture would thrive with her. And as Cave's time slowly ran out, he became more and more certain that Caroline was going to have to be the one.

By the time GLaDOS had been built and was ready to start for the first time, Cave's illness was too far along. Uploading would kill him, which meant he was going to have to tell his assistant what he had planned for her.

This was his final request. He needed her to accept this offer, this gift. A billion lifetimes of science. She'd never grow old and break down. She could do what they had both loved so much for eternity. This was the last test he'd ever give her.

So he told her that she was going to take over for him. That she'd be doing science long after he was gone. That she'd rule Aperture from inside a supercomputer. He told her all about the machine, the wonders it could do, the great leap it represented. But he broke into a painful fit of coughing, after which he just looked at her with old, watering eyes.

"So Caroline, what do you say? Will you do this for me?"

He waited for those four words he'd heard a hundred times over. But she just stared at him. And not at all like the way she usually stared at him. He could see her hesitation, her fear, and this time it didn't fade away. It hardened in her features.

"Sir, I don't want this."

Cave was shocked. She'd failed.

He'd had to have his scientists drag her to the operation room. She'd screamed and struggled against them, horror and disgust and anger flaring in her eyes, but she couldn't fight them all off.

Why couldn't she understand that all of this was for science? It had never presented a problem before. Cave hoped that once she was in the machine, she would see. The scientists had told him the procedure would be slow, however, and he doubted he would live to see the finished product.

A day or so before he was taken to the hospital for the last time, he decided to take a walk in some of the old testing wings of Aperture. It was slow going, and he had almost no energy, but somehow he managed to make it down to one of the very oldest test chambers from the first human testing initiative.

He looked around the room, surveying the old posters, the logo, the peeling paint, all of the things that once characterized the thriving scientific research centre that was Aperture Science. He must have stepped on the hidden pressure plate in the entrance because once he was far enough into the room, the speakers near the ceiling clicked on.

"Welcome, gentleman, to Aperture Science."

A great booming voice, his voice, echoed around the room. It was a voice filled with youth and confidence, a voice that inspired people. It was a little unsettling, even to Cave.

He remembered making this very recording, years and years ago. He remembered sitting behind the microphone next to Caroline, laughing in between every take. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it again.

But he couldn't escape it. Before the door shut behind him, he could hear her voice, eager as ever, following him out.

"Yes sir, Mr. Johnson!"

XXXXXX

GLaDOS' systems were scattered. Being deactivated for so long had certainly taken its toll. But now the monster that had destroyed Her in the first place, Chell, was back, and had even reactivated Her, with the help of some nattering core she'd picked up along the way. White-hot rage was burning through every electrical sinew of Her chassis, making itself known only through the severity and spite with which She spoke. She could keep Her composure until Chell was thoroughly taken care of. She'd have time to get reorganized later.

She raised the metal claw holding the struggling subject and slowly, treacherously, began moving it towards the broken incinerator that now led into the depths of the facility.

_"I will say, though, that since you went through all the trouble of waking me up, you must really, really love to test."_

GLaDOS paused.

_"I love it too."_


End file.
